I just read an article that said: “Get-rich-quick” schemes are usually just that – schemes. Are schemes a bad thing? My American Heritage Dictionary (Third Edition) defines a scheme as: “a systematic plan or action” So… a get-rich-quick scheme is a systematic plan or action to get rich quick. Doesn’t sound bad, really.
Archive | Language/Lit
Another word that they changed
I’ve pointed out before that American English is as close to Shakespeare and Chaucer as is British English (much as some British like to think otherwise). In the same vein, I’ve also pointed out before that some words and spellings that we think of as strictly Americanisms are actually holdovers from the way English was […]
I Do Not Believe You
Words that mean “VERY GOOD” but also mean (or used to mean) “Not to be Believed”: Fantastic: I.e., fantasy, i.e., not true. Incredible: I.e., not credible, i.e., not believable. Unbelievable: I’ll let you work this one out. Fabulous: From a fable, i.e., not true. Other types of “Very Good” words: Amazing: Shares an ancestor with […]
In Encyclopedia News
Or is it “encyclopaedia”? Encyclopaedia Britannica becomes more like Wikipedia. Wikipedia may become more like Encyclopedia Britannica. Will they merge and become Wikipaedia Britannica?
Speaking of Luxury
I’m reading Love in a Cold Climate, by Nancy Mitford. I’ve read a few of these light little romps through the 1920’s in upper crust England. They’re fun. But this is the first one I’ve read being told in first person by a female character. Suddenly, when all the ladies leave the men to their […]
Birdies
boingboing.net directs us to cloudboxer, where you can see pictures of birds in the guy’s backyard. Incidentally, that was a hard sentence to write because I originally wrote: “… pictures of birds shot in his backyard.” Then images of bloody starlings came to mind and I changed it. Incidentally again, the word “backyard” is a […]
John Mortimer
If you’ve never read any of the Rumpole books, then you still have the chance to read one for the first time. I don’t know what I expected when I read my first one. I think I was waiting for some sort of Jeeves story, but with barristers and wigs. I love Wodehouse and Jeeves, […]
To Bee or Not to Bee
I’m reading Fruitless Fall, by Rowan Jacobsen. It’s mainly about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), which has apparently devastated the bee keeping industry around the world. I haven’t gotten to a lot of the CCD stuff yet (as of page 60), but what I have read has been fascinating. Bees’ lives, the different roles in their […]
Drive Safe!
Yesterday I heard someone say to “drive safe.” I hear this a lot, and every time, I add a silent “ly” to the end of “safe.” Drive safely. How do you drive? In what manner? Safely. Not safe. Adverb, not adjective. But yesterday, I paused. Suddenly, I remembered Dylan Thomas’s ultra-famous: “Do not go gentle […]
Additions to the Oxford English Dictionary
“Big Whoop” is now defined in the OED. They always have quotes for each word, showing how it was used in a published article. In this case they include a quote from comp.unix.questions, a Usenet group. Nothing interesting about the quote, but it’s very interesting to me that they accept Usenet as a published source.